looks at life for women of a certain age. Observations and wry stories that might ring bells with some.

Friday, 9 October 2009

Driving Test Stress

It’s sometimes hard to tell - one can be misdirected by circumstantial evidence. Take last week for instance: we took six teenagers away for the week-end for my son’s 18th and four of them had colds or flu - but they badly wanted to enjoy themselves so they jolled (partied) as normal and slept, squashed up in one tiny room, so that they could ‘kuier’ (visit) into the small hours. So when my son got sick on Sunday, complaining of a bad headache (hangover or flu, we thought), but by Tuesday when he had experienced two nights of no sleep, with terrific sweats during the night which refused to be calmed for long by either Disprin or Myprodol, we then thought exam and driving test nerves. I dragged him to school on Tuesday morning because it was the Matrics’ last day and they had to attend school that night - which he did and nearly passed out (because of not eating much for a couple of days we thought), and the headache continued. On Wednesday morning there were dramas about his eventual driving test, but he took it and passed losing only 19 points. Later that afternoon, he had an extra Maths lesson but still had the headache: his tutor was so concerned I finally took him to the doctor that evening. Guess what - tic bite fever !! Suddenly, we all remembered that he had said two weeks previously that he had been bitten by a tic, but in the intervening period we had not given that a thought. I feel bad now that I have given him a hard time this week, but better when I think that a friend of ours - an orthopaedic surgeon - ignored his daughter’s sore arm for a week, basically telling her that she was making a fuss over nothing - actually, it was broken!